


Second Time Lucky

by shihadchick



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Obliviousness, Pining, brief mention of wives/children of characters outside the pairing, everyone thinks they're dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-16 06:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8091943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihadchick/pseuds/shihadchick
Summary: It took Matt long enough to get over his crush on Cam the first time. He's not at all impressed with himself for the fact apparently he's going to have to do it again.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [couldaughter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/couldaughter/gifts).



> Many thanks to my lovely beta K!

Matt's phone buzzed in his hand with a notification, and he set down his drink on the table, unlocking it again to see Cam's twitter pop up, replying to his tweet about Rio with "Mix in a medal". Matt snorted and shook his head, grinning helplessly. 

"Weaksauce," he said under his breath, glad that at least Soph and Chili weren't going to judge him for an equally weak chirp in response.

He took a couple of seconds to think about it, but still didn't exactly have any kind of comeback—it wasn't like they weren't all well aware Canada wasn't exactly burning up the medal tables yet—so instead of replying on twitter he flicked over to the group text and sent Cam a row of emoji grumpy faces. He knew that Cam was still on his phone—the speed he'd replied to Matt's tweet gave that away if nothing else—and right on schedule the little bubble with dots popped up to let him know Cam was replying. 

Matt grinned to himself and shifted on the couch, putting his feet up. He could toss a few chirps back and forth with Cam and wait till this event ended, and then go out on the boat again for a couple hours. Summer wasn't bad at all, really.

Cam's reply was also in emoji, but had about ten different icons, including what looked like half the vegetables. Matt wasn't sure what that was about, but he did know he was probably supposed to be insulted, so he just tapped out a, "Whatever" and added the shrimp emoji.

He might not be the tallest guy in the world himself but whatever, he was always going to be taller than Cam. So sue him for kinda enjoying it sometimes.

* * *

As ever, there was basically zero cell reception out on the lake, so by the time Matt came back in, faint sunburn going pink and itchy across his nose, and with an ever-multiplying spread of freckles across his shoulders it was to look at his phone again for the first time in a few hours. 

He raised an eyebrow at the notification number—usually that only got that high when Dubi or Joey was really running their mouth, or if Hartsy was bored, or if someone was getting piled on for whatever reason, but considering everyone who had their phone going had been chirping back and forth over Olympic events it probably wasn't surprising. He stashed his catch for the day in the freezer, and went to shower the smell of fish and bait off his hands, which was both more effective and about a thousand times less gross than the dogs enthusiastically trying to lick him because of it. 

They could both do with a bath sometime soon as well, he thought, ducking his head under the spray and lathering up shampoo. The lake might be freshwater, but they'd both been running in and out of the shallows chasing sticks, and wet dog smelled like wet dog no matter what time of year it was. Air drying was only going to do so much. And he was pretty sure Soph had pond weed stuck to her tail, although she'd been whipping it around fast enough that he wasn't totally certain. Definitely time to appreciate his folks insistence they had an outdoor shower as well as the bathrooms indoors. 

Although maybe he'd be lazy and wait until right before his own shower next time to do that. He'd had enough summers at the lake with dogs to know that there was no way they were getting clean without him getting half-covered in mud at the same time, especially since he knew his brothers would have to spend ten minutes also giving him shit about it before helping out.

Matt swung back through the front room and grabbed his phone again once he'd toweled off, pulled on a clean shirt and shorts. He snagged a beer out of the cooler and headed out to the patio, stretching out in one of the loungers and taking a long gulp before setting the bottle down on the table near him. He could hear the shower running inside, and some indistinct yelling which meant his brothers and their friends were either still showering or arguing over who got to fix dinner, but all Matt needed to know was that it wasn't his turn. So he had at least an hour or so of time to chill out, kick back a little and relax. 

It wasn't like he never got any time to himself during the season either, but it was nice to have some quiet moments even with people he loved around. He could definitely understand now why his mom used to hole up on the deck with her book and let them all charge around the yard and dive bomb each other off the pier while his dad kept a vague eye on them and on his line. They'd done a pretty good job raising him and his brothers, he figured. It would probably be good to pass that on some day, Matt was definitely looking forward to that. Even if the whole having kids thing was probably going to be a little more… complicated, for him.

Plenty of time for that, he thought, and took another long drink from his beer. He could cross that bridge when he came to it. 

Ready for a distraction, he picked up his phone again and this time actually paid some attention to the chat. It was just a couple of the guys going back and forth, like he'd have guessed. A lot of Canada versus the US trashtalk, which was situation normal, and then Fliggy rolling his eyes at both Cam and Matt before following up with a string of the US flag icons, which was pretty unambiguous about where his vote really was.

"ur so fucking married," Dubi had replied, tagging Cam and Matt in, and Matt blinked for a second. 

There was a blast from the past, that was for sure. Him and Cam used to get that all the time from the other guys, any time they'd get caught up arguing or messing with each other in the locker room, and Dubi's first year with the Jackets was probably the last time it had really come up a lot. He'd forgotten Dubi even knew that joke, since half the other guys who used to pull it hadn't been in Columbus for a few seasons now.

He'd almost forgotten how it made him pause and reevaluate just how much he was hassling Cam, whether that was giving him shit for being short or messing with his hair because it made him yelp and try to smack Matt back. He'd forgotten it made his stomach flip, somehow landing right on that awkward-good intersection where it made him think about things he absolutely shouldn’t.

He didn't know why the guys had dropped it not long after the lockout season, let it fade into the background of running jokes and dumb chirps and all the stupid shit that went in circles around any locker room, whether it was filled with kids still in midgets or guys old enough to have kids of their own playing. 

That was kind of a lie, though, Matt admitted to himself, reluctantly letting his thoughts circle back around to what he'd been trying to avoid ever since he'd read Dubi's comment. 

Matt knew exactly why they'd stopped.

Because he'd seen Cam's face the last time Prouter and Wiz had been running that joke into the ground in its thousandth iteration, and Cam had looked freaked out, and so uncomfortable, and Matt couldn't stand it any more. He'd gone white hot with shame and then completely unfair rage, because it wasn't Wiz's fault that apparently Matt wasn't doing the best job of hiding just how much that would be something he'd like, enough that he'd made Cam freak out about it, and if he didn't fix this then it was probably only a matter of time until the Blue Jackets decided they were done with him, ready to make him someone else's problem.

So Matt had gone down the hall to the gym and ridden the bike for long enough that he ached all over and his breath was coming short, and then when he'd showered and could fake being reasonable about it, he'd gone to talk quietly to Jack and asked him to ask the other guys to lay off, just a bit.

There must have been something in his face that told Jack he meant it, too, because he never saw any of the conversations, but it just—never came up again that year.

And Matt threw himself into the game and tried to not fuck anything else up, although considering the fact he’d ended up with more PIMs than points, he hadn't exactly done a great job of that, either. The minus 9 wasn't exactly a high point in his career, either.

He'd gone home that summer and put a lot of time into training; more time into making himself just get over it already, reminding himself of the lines he was drawing, the habits he had to keep within. And it had worked, mostly. The next season had felt like things were getting back to normal again, and if Cam had been a little hesitant to jump on Matt the way he used to when they were all horsing around, well. That was just how things were going to have to be. Matt had adjusted. He wouldn't say he'd gotten over it, precisely, because that was giving that spark of attraction he couldn't help but feel more weight than it had earned, but he'd figured out how to stop himself noticing, and he'd thought the rest of the guys had, too. 

Apparently they'd just stopped chirping him about it. 

Maybe Boone and Dalton being even more attached at the hip had taken over that part of their locker room trash talk. Matt was almost jealous sometimes of the things Boone could say or do, secure in the knowledge that he's totally straight, that everyone knows he is. Matt has to be careful, can't remember a time when he didn't. It wears on him some days, second-guessing himself before he says something, trying to be aware of how he looks at people, how long he touches them. 

He'd gotten comfortable again with sprawling all over Cam when they were playing Xbox at Cam’s or Joey's place, because at some point that had become normal again. He hadn't really thought about it more than to be grateful that things weren't weird any more. So either Dubi was needling him, or—he'd slipped up again, and hadn't even noticed.

Matt stared down at his phone, not really registering anything else on the screen, and chewed on his lip, trying to work out what he should do. The thing was, he wasn’t sure whether he should even say anything. 

Replying would either make shit weird—pretty much the worst case scenario—or it would make Dubi double down, which wasn’t exactly a great outcome either. Matt’s fine jumping in when it’s someone else on the line—he’s pretty sure he’s made that clear enough on the ice over the years—but this wasn’t at all that kind of situation. 

He made himself concentrate again and checked; Cam hadn’t replied to anything since Dubi’s comment either. That didn’t necessarily mean much—he was just as likely as any of the rest of them to be out actually doing stuff rather than just fucking around on his phone—but Matt was definitely getting the impression of silence rather than absence from Cam’s direction.

Which was ridiculous, of course; how the hell could he have any idea what Cam was doing over in Connecticut?

But then again, Matt was good at guessing what Cam was up to. And that also didn’t exactly help.

Waiting it out was going to be a better solution than saying anything stupid, Matt figured after a while; if neither of them reacted then it would get dropped and no one was going to think anything of it. 

Decision made, he put his phone down, and got up to go hassle the guys while they were prepping dinner. Telling them they were using the grill wrong was guaranteed to be a lot more entertaining and a lot less fraught than letting himself dwell on shit that was never going to happen.

There was a lot of summer left, and by the time they all got back to Columbus no one was even going to remember this. It was fine.

* * * 

This was definitely not fine, Matt thought, sneaking a look at Cam, looping around Mac’s net and cheerfully yelling something rude at whichever one of the rookies he was ‘helping’ pick up the drill. The liberal “That’s right, baby!”s sprinkled through Cam’s instructions weren’t helping Matt out a whole lot either, although of course none of the other guys even batted an eyelid at that. 

Cam was just being Cam.

Matt managed to keep a grip on himself and not—he hoped—actually let his expression or body language give away the fact that he was freaking out a little, because they’d all been back in Columbus and skating before training camp proper started up for about five minutes before it had become clear that while everyone else had clearly forgotten anything that happened over the summer, _Matt_ was having serious trouble letting it go.

If he’d been aware of Cam pretty much any time they’d been in the same place for the last few years, now he felt hyper aware, and in a way that didn’t feel like it was going to turn into crazy on-ice chemistry. Instead, it just felt like something that was going to make Matt go crazy.

Being blindsided for the second time by a crush you thought you’d gotten over was fucking bullshit, Matt thought, determinedly toweling his hair dry and trying to keep his eyes and his mouth shut. It was just unfair. He’d already been on this ride, it wasn’t fun, and even the heartstopping moments where he could briefly convince himself that Cam was looking back weren’t nearly as enjoyable when he knew he needed to get over this—again—and fast.

Basically, it sucked.

“Jesus, who pissed in your cornflakes?” Hartsy asked, and Matt shook his head, tried to shake it all off and just plastered on a grin, and bluffed it out. “No idea, man, what?”

“Huh,” Hartsy said, and let it go, but when Matt stopped looking at him it was to see a couple of the other guys looking at them curiously, and yeah, he definitely needed to get home and talk himself into a better frame of mind.

“Uh, later, guys,” he said, and stuffed the last few things he needed to take with him into his bag and headed for the door.

He heard someone say something behind him, but it was quiet enough he could definitely pretend not to have noticed, so he kept going.

* * * 

Sacking out on the couch at Cam’s place and trying to pretend like everything was just normal was also not working out quite so well as Matt might have hoped. Jonesy and Murrs were elbowing each other for custody of the third game controller, which meant that in trying not to be collateral damage he was getting shoved progressively closer to Cam on the couch. 

And while it was a pretty big couch, and Cam obviously wasn’t the biggest guy in the world, they were also starting seriously run out of couch. And the fact that Matt could feel the way Cam got tenser and tenser as he got closer was kind of depressing, because it was bad enough having a stupid crush; suspecting that Cam knew and wasn’t comfortable with it was just—lowering in a way that was making Matt feel like shit. 

He couldn’t even start making excuses and bail, because he’d been Boone’s ride, and Boone was sitting in one armchair with a beer dangling between thumb and forefinger, and smirking over how badly he was schooling the rest of them.

Matt had definitely had better Fridays. 

Eventually Matt figured that discretion was the better part of valor and all that, and just grabbed the controller out of Jonesy’s hands—he wasn’t expecting an attack from that side—and tossed it to Prouter, sitting just out of kicking range on one of the other chairs dragged in from the kitchen for their impromptu Call of Duty tournament. 

“Thanks, Matty,” Prouter said with a grin, while Jonesy just rolled his eyes and then—finally—shifted just enough that Matt could slide an inch or so away from Cam.

That should have made him feel better, but instead he just felt slightly colder now that he wasn’t jammed in between Cam and Jonesy, and to add insult to injury, Prouter’s first act when they restarted the game was to snipe him without even a scrap of mercy.

Matt was probably not exactly giving the game his best attention, so after the required promises of payback later he handed over his controller and let himself slouch back into the couch, careful to keep his expression mostly neutral. Probably no one else was going to notice anything, really.

He was starting to think the only thing left to try was to talk to Cam. He had no idea how to even start that conversation; it wasn’t like there weren’t fifteen different awful ways that people could respond. And the more he thought about how to stop making it weird, the weirder it felt.

This was not at all a sustainable situation.

* * *

And as if Matt didn’t have enough to worry about, their next practice after that weekend was equally messed up in completely the opposite way. He was focusing on drills and what the coaching staff were telling them to do, and Cam was buzzing around all of them, skating circles just a little too close, fake-hip checking Matt a couple of times the way he hadn’t done for a couple of weeks.

It probably said something about how gone on him Matt was that he’d kind of missed that. 

Maybe Cam had no clue after all and Matt was just worrying too much, and before he could let himself go too far down that path he had Torts yelling at him and then Cam swooping past to steal the puck away before it hit his stick, calling “that’s how you do it, baby!” back over his shoulder before knocking the puck into Bob’s pads. 

At least one of them was having a good day, Matt figured, and then yanked his attention back to actually playing hockey, fuck.

That resolution took a hit a few minutes later, when Cam slid to a stop right beside him while they were lined up against the wall, waiting turns for the next drill.

“Hey, so,” Cam said, “We haven’t done dinner in a while, you should come over.”

Matt took a second to consider making an excuse, but it wasn’t like he could come up with anything convincing on the fly, and it was probably better to get this out of the way. 

“Yeah, okay,” he said, and then they both got back to work. 

Matt gave himself a second of sheer mindless panic, and then firmly put all the stupid shit he was letting himself think into the back of his mind. He had other things to concentrate on, that was for sure.

If he’d thought he’d probably gotten away with both those moments of inattention and general weirdness, it only took a few minutes in the locker room after the end of practice for that misapprehension to be corrected.

Matt was stripping off, and actually succeeding in not worrying about anything for a change that week, much more distracted by trying to remember what he had left in his kitchen and if he should make a grocery run again any time soon when Fliggy’s voice broke into his thoughts. 

He knocked his shoulder against Matt’s, leaning in to ask, “Hey, Janelle wanted me to invite you guys over for dinner, I totally forgot to ask yesterday. You free?”

Matt stared at him for a moment. “Uh, I think Cam wanted to do something?” 

“Yeah, I meant both of you,” Nick said, like that made any sense, and turned to Cam to add, “so we’ll see you guys at seven?”

Cam blinked fast a couple of times and shrugged, ran a hand over his hair as if he was checking it was okay. He needed a haircut, if Matt was being honest, and he was red in the face from exertion still, but at least when his hair was too long it mostly stayed out of his eyes, not that Matt was a little jealous or anything. 

“I—yeah, okay,” Cam said. “Guess I’ll have to cook for Matty some other time, huh?”

"Wait, where did I sign up for eating whatever you're cooking," Matt replied, not missing a beat, because some impulses never quit. 

"Oh fuck off, I can cook," Cam protested. 

He could, Matt knew. He wasn’t amazing or anything, but he's also not terrible. Not like some people he could mention, _Joey_.

"What's this about dinner?" Dubi asked, poking his nose in. 

Matt resisted the urge to say something to that effect, because even with Cam standing _right there_ Dubi would just chirp him back with a short joke, and, like. He's definitely heard all of those by now. And more importantly, so has the rest of the locker room. While none of them are beyond cheerfully running a joke into the ground, that one's so old it's just about mummified. Fossilized. Ossified, even, maybe. Or maybe those two should be in the opposite order.

Whatever it was, it looked like now he had a busy afternoon of napping in front of his TiVo and being secretly glad to have got out of dinner alone with Cam planned, so he should definitely hit the showers sooner rather than later.

"Didn't know you were invited," Nick said tartly, and ducked the mock-punch Dubi fired in his direction.

Matt had to grin at that, a little; Nick versus Dubi was usually good for the spectators if nothing else.

"News to me," Dubi said. "Was this a team thing or—?"

"Just these two idiots," Nick said, gesturing towards Matty and Cam with his thumb, shit-eating grin still firmly in place. "Gotta make sure they're getting all their vegetables and everything."

"I'm twenty-six, not twenty," Cam protested, just as Dubi shook his head knowingly and said, "Ah, date night."

Matt was pretty sure he didn’t cringe obviously.

"You're all dicks," Cam muttered, but he didn’t look upset, so Matt mentally crossed his fingers and hoped no one else was gonna chime in. 

“Great, seven it is,” Fliggy said, like that was that, and so Matt figured, that meant it was.

Then again, if he was acting like everything was the same as normal, that meant he had one other thing to do—

"Want me to pick you up on the way?" Matt offered, bumping his shoulder against Cam's, and Cam gave him an easy smile, pure reflex. 

"Yeah," he said. "That'd be good, thanks."

He wasn’t sure why Prouter raised an eyebrow at that, but honestly, who could say with him sometimes. Matt's going to go back to talking to Saader about sensible things like the Cav’s chances this season and not worry about whatever Prouter was implying.

* * *

Matt made a bit of an effort to dress up that evening; if Janelle was going to the effort of making dinner then Matt was obviously going to wear something nice, and he was bringing a good bottle of wine. With four of them, it's not like it's going to work out more than a glass or so each, so he'll still be good to drive and none of them is going to do too much damage to their nutritional plans. 

Cam was probably expecting him to just text him to come out to the car or something when he got there, but whatever else was going on, Matt wanted to get a chance to say hi to Easton, get some dog time in since he misses his through the season. He still hasn’t been sure he should bring them down when he’s away from home so much.

He paused with his hand on the door handle, second-guessing himself. Cam gave him a key years ago, and most of the time he wouldn’t think twice before using it, but he couldn’t help a moment’s pause over it.

Acting normal, he reminded himself, and normal was letting himself into Cam’s apartment when he was over there, so Matt turned the key and walked in. Cam had his shoes on already, lingering in his hall messing about with his phone, clearly waiting for Matt before bothering to grab his coat.

“Hey,” Matt said, and Cam looked up—as if he hadn’t heard the door—and said, “Hey.”

“You ready?" Matt asked, tempted to toe his shoes off and go find Easton, because playing with a dog for a minute or two was definitely preferable to standing there noticing how well Cam’s scrubbed up, wearing a nice jacket and suit pants that he usually saves for game day; he was even wearing a tie. 

Matt hadn't quite gone that far. He was wearing a nice jacket and a fresh shirt; nothing short of the fact it was mandated by the league was going to get him in a tie if he didn’t have to wear one. He thought Cam might have even shaved again, although it was harder to tell with him than some of the other guys. Cam was fair enough that his five o'clock shadow didn't exactly stand out all that much.

"Uh, yeah," Cam said. He paused. “You trying to impress someone tonight?”

"Thought I should make an effort, you know," Matt said, and shrugged. "It's polite." He hasn’t made as much of an effort as Cam, but apparently enough that it stood out.

"I got flowers," Cam said, and he picked up the bouquet resting on top of the sideboard, held it out for Matt’s inspection. He must have run out to an actual florist, Matt thought, they were definitely nicer than grocery store ones. Cam was pretty clearly also running through the same be-a-good-guest guidelines that Matt was. "I figured you’d pick up wine, so this way we’re covered for both.” He paused for a second, while Matt tried to think about anything but how casually domestic this felt, and how much he liked that. Cam opened his mouth, closed it again, and then at the sound of scratching from the other room he sighed and added, “you wanna risk getting hair on your pants and say hi to Easton, or do you wanna head out now?"

It was a stupid question really, and Cam didn’t even wait for Matt to answer before he put the flowers down again and went to dig out the lint roller. 

“I shut him up in the spare room,” Cam said, pointing with the lint roller, like Matt didn’t know his way around Cam’s place practically blindfolded. “I didn’t want to turn up covered in dog, but you do you, bud.”

“Oh please, like you can say no to this face,” Matt replied, opening the door and getting an armful of over-excited dog about two seconds later.

Cam just stood by the coat rack and laughed at them both.

He probably had that coming, Matt figured, crouching down to scratch Easton’s ears, and he couldn’t quite wipe the grin off his face at the way Easton wriggled ecstatically as Matt petted him. Easton tended to show his affection by covering the objects of it in hair from knees to ankle, and Matt was definitely going to have to make use of the lint roller. It was worth it though.

"You'd think I never play with him," Cam said. "C'mon, mutt, we've got to go," and that just meant that Easton bounded over to say hi to Cam again too. 

They both had to take a few minutes to clean up again before actually leaving Cam's place, but at least they weren’t running late. Matt showed up early for a reason, thanks.

* * *

It didn't take long to get to Fliggy's, and they were hardly even in the front door—kicking shoes off beside it, like the good Canadian and/or Connecticut boys they are—before Matt had to brace himself for getting pounced on for the second time that afternoon. That time it was Milana who thumped into his calves, looking up at him and beaming before demanding to be picked up. Matt was a sucker for that grin, so he did, which meant she moved right on to trying to negotiate for other treats. 

"Pretty sure that's up to your dad and mom," Cam said from over Matt’s shoulder, before he could put together something convincing along those same lines, and they both turned to see Janelle nodding approvingly at them.

"Not when it's going to spoil your dinner," she said when he turned back so that Milana could see her too. 

She sighed gustily, and Matt had to try pretty hard not to give away how much it made him want to laugh. 

He let her down to go play in the living room again, and followed Cam and Janelle into the kitchen. 

Cam was on his best behavior, all nice East coast manners and careful like he was when he really wanted to make a good impression, and he handed over the flowers and the bottle of wine, and then apologized for not having chilled it. Matt blinked, confused. It wasn’t like it was the first time they’d had dinner with them, and it wasn’t anything like the first time Cam had met Janelle or the rest of the family either. Matt was pretty sure they’d both been telling dirty jokes that had made _Matt_ blush after Thanksgiving dinner last year. There was definitely something up with Cam.

They could see that Nick was finishing up setting the table as Cam unscrewed the cap on the wine—and that was another weird thing, because usually Cam opening wine turned into his story about how corks fucking sucked, had Matt heard about the time him and Joey had to run a bottle through the strainer to get out all the bits of cork that had crumbled into it? 

Definitely something fishy going on. 

Nick just waved a hello to them before coming back into the kitchen to steal a glass of wine and a fast kiss from Janelle, an easy grin on his face, and Matt couldn’t help but think he looked much less stressed for the first time in a while. 

They hadn't done as much stuff as a team outside the ice and away from the rink this year, and Matt was starting to realize that he'd missed it more than he might have expected. After the way last year had gone, it had been harder to start the season with the overwhelming blind optimism they’d coasted on until it had all crashed underneath them, but he hadn’t thought they’d let this kind of thing fall off as much as it had.

“Dinner’s going to be ready in a minute,” Janelle said. “Go sit down already, you’re guests. Nick, are those sweet potatoes ready yet?” 

Nick prodded the pan with a spatula and decided that was a yes, turning the element off and transferring them to a serving plate with practiced ease. He stepped around Janelle while she finished up a few other things, the two of them hardly even needing to look at each other or exchange words or more than maybe the touch of Nick’s fingertips to her elbow, and Matt felt a sliver of raw envy twist through him, wished he could have someone to be that comfortable with, to work together with that easily.

Dinner was just as good as Matt expected, and the conversation flowed more easily that he had worried it might. They kept mostly away from talking shop and instead focused on what they’d done over the off-season. Cam tried to brag about his golf game improving, and Nick had tried to argue, but since Matt hadn’t actually seen either of them golf in a while he just declared himself neutral and turned the conversation right back around to fishing.

“…and that’s why we have a spare oar in the boat now,” Matt finished up, shuddering dramatically at the memory of how long it’d taken them to swim the boat back in after the engine seized, even though they hadn’t even been all that far off shore.

“You still have the same boat, right?” Cam asked. “Or did you finally decide to upgrade that thing?”

“Hey,” Matt said, narrowing his eyes in a glare that was at least sixty percent joking. Okay, at least fifty percent. “Don’t knock it till you’ve seen it.”

“Wait, you haven’t seen it?” Nick asked. “Didn’t you go up north with Matty over summer?”

“Uh, no?” Cam said, playing with his water glass and pushing the last couple of peas around on his plate. Matt was tempted to try and give him shit for that, but it seemed like a bad example to set for the kids. That was going to be Matt’s excuse, anyway.

“Huh,” Nick said. “We figured, you know.” He shrugged, and Matt exchanged a completely bewildered look with Cam. “You can talk about stuff like that, you know the guys are fine, right?”

Matt’s stomach sank, possibly not just to his feet but even through the floor and into the ground underneath. Nick couldn’t possibly be implying—

“No one’s gonna say anything, it’s no big deal.” Nick paused. “Okay, I mean, yeah, it’s a big deal, but, like. Anyone who finds out isn’t going to do anything you don’t want with that information.”

That was a big promise for Fliggy to be making, Matt thought for a second, although he did sort of appreciate the intent. And then his mind caught up to itself again because everything Nick was saying really seemed to be suggesting that he thought they were _dating_.

“You know it’s a good thing that the guys want to chirp you about it, right?” Nick asked, a little too intently.

“Uh, yeah,” Cam said, looking as awkward as Matt felt. “We, um. Appreciate that?”

He shot a look at Matt that Matt had no trouble whatsoever reading as don’t say anything, we’re going to talk about this later. Matt could follow Cam’s lead on this one, he figured, still totally off-balance. At least Cam was doing the hard work of deflecting.

Nick shifted and Matt wasn’t sure, but he had a feeling Janelle might have just kicked him under the table. She was just nodding agreement, and giving Matt a look that he figured was probably meant to indicate that she was being supportive too. And that she thought Nick should get to the point already.

“Hope you didn’t mind me horning in on your date night, anyway,” Nick said, looking relieved now himself, like he’d done his captainly duty and didn’t have to try and nudge them the way he thought he should any more, relaxing like nothing was any different to any other meal they’d all had together.

And yep, that was unambiguous, Nick definitely thought—and given the way he’d been dropping ‘we’ through that whole thing, probably other people as well—thought that Matt and Cam were a couple.

Matt tried to feel a sense of shock at that, but all he was really getting was a faint buzz—other people thought he and Cam could actually be a couple!—and a whole lot of jealousy toward that fictional version of himself who was apparently happily shacked up with one of his best friends. And a large helping of mild terror about how talking this through with Cam was going to go. They really should try to let Nick know he was off-base, it wasn’t like that was going to get any easier the longer they left it.

“Yeah, uh, speaking of that,” Cam said, and Matt relaxed. If Cam could do that then they were both off the hook. “I think we should be heading home. You know. Early flight tomorrow, and all that.”

“Uh, yeah, of course,” Nick said, and Matt blinked. 

Cam hadn’t corrected his assumptions at all, and if Matt wasn’t somehow drunk off half a glass of wine, he seemed to be implying right back that he and Matt were going to go home and—

Matt definitely didn’t need to keep imagining the rest of that sentence.

Cam pushed his chair back a little abruptly, then colored and leaned in to pick up his plate to carry to the kitchen. Matt followed him almost on autopilot, and he put his shoes and coat back on in the same quiet haze, following Cam’s lead in saying quiet goodnights to everyone before walking back down to the car in a loaded silence.

“I, uh. Can you believe—?” Matt started to say as they pulled back onto the street, still reeling a little and trying to figure out how to react. What he should even say or admit.

“Can we talk about this at my place?” Cam asked tightly, and Matt shut his mouth fast, bit his lip until he could fake some kind of cool again. 

“Sure,” Matt said, and tried not to tap his fingers on the steering wheel while he navigated them through the somehow eternal and yet still not long enough trip back to Cam’s place.

They parked in the same silence, and Matt followed Cam upstairs, watching the way his feet moved on the stairs, the polished leather of his shoes, shiny-new, a perfect match to his belt. The fact Matt noticed things like what belt Cam was wearing was probably another reason why Nick had jumped to the conclusion he had.

Cam locked the door behind them, and pointed Matt mutely to the living room. They could both hear Easton scratching at the door of the kitchen where Cam had left him locked in, but Cam didn’t make any move to let him in. Probably being licked all over by an overenthusiastic dog wasn’t going to make this conversation any easier.

“I’m sorry—” Matt started to say, and his words overlapped with Cam’s, as Cam said, “So I think I need to—”

“Go ahead,” Matt said. At least once he heard Cam out he’d have a better idea of how to react.

“I think I need to apologize,” Cam said, looking down at his hands, fidgeting. “I said something the other day and I think—I mean, obviously Nick got the wrong idea, because we’re not, I mean, you wouldn’t—”

“Wait, what?” Matt asked. He hadn’t been expecting anything like that. 

“I don’t want to make things weird,” Cam said.

“I think that ship has sailed,” Matt muttered, and Cam punched him in the thigh, not at all gently. 

“Don’t joke,” Cam said. “I just. Obviously you’re, uh.”

“Really gay for you?” Matt suggested, mouth twisting, unable to resist the attempt at black humor. Might as well get it all out in the open before this got even more uncomfortable.

“Oh,” Cam said, poleaxed. Matt stared. They just looked at each other for a long moment.

“What?” Cam said, a lot higher pitched than he usually was. “I thought. That is not what I thought.”

“Oh,” Matt said. Shit, why was he so bad at thinking before he spoke? “What did you think?”

“I thought that was just me,” Cam said, still staring. “The guys kept joking and I thought maybe you were, you know, interested, and then things got weird so I figured you weren’t and, like, okay, I moved on, sort of.”

“Sort of?” Matt repeated. What the hell did sort of mean? When the hell had Cam been interested back and why hadn’t anyone told Matt? 

“You got all touchy again this year,” Cam protested, like Matt was the one unfairly dropping bombshells into this conversation. “I thought we were flirting but you looked so freaked out when Nick said—so I figured, uh, guess I have to get over you again.”

“No, don’t,” Matt said, before he could think any better of it. “I looked freaked out because _he thought we were a couple_.”

“That’s what I said.”

Matt took a deep breath and tried to find the right words. “Because I would _like that_ , and I thought it would fuck up being able to play with you and hang out and all that kind of thing.”

“Oh,” Cam said, in an entirely different tone.

“Also, you know, that thing where I don’t exactly want to go around advertising, hey, super gay hockey player right here, please, let every asshole on another team go straight for those insults next time.” 

Matt couldn’t help a little bitterness from bleeding into his tone there. He knows his role, knows that sometimes he has to fight or get under other players’ skin, and hearing shitty insults goes hand in hand with that, but it doesn’t mean he’s ever been able to pretend to himself that some of them don’t sting more than others.

“Uh, hello,” Cam said, and jabbed Matt in the knee with his index finger. “I think I just told you pretty much same here, so.”

“You had girlfriends,” Matt argued, not entirely sure why he was. 

“Okay, so I’m not picky,” Cam said. “I mean. Uh. Pretend that was a compliment instead of—you know.”

Matt felt his lips quirk up into a helpless grin. Cam did have a point, even if he was putting it in the most roundabout way possible.

“So you didn’t tell Fliggy we’re not actually dating,” Matt said slowly. “Because…?”

“Well I’d feel pretty stupid if I said that, and then asked you out and had to go back and tell him, hey, actually,” Cam says, entirely reasonably. “So I am. Asking you out.”

Matt swallowed hard. He hadn’t seen this coming, and on the surface it was everything he wanted, even if he wasn’t sure he could believe this was even happening. But if it came down to anything, it was that his choices weren’t feeling sorry for himself or getting over Cam or going out and trying to find some other person to have a relationship with, they were… saying yes or no to Cam. 

Even if it all went horribly wrong and exploded in their faces, Matt couldn’t persuade himself even for a second that it was any contest whatsoever.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean. Yes. We should go out.”

“And by asking you out I mean do this,” Cam said, not even missing a beat, and as Matt opened his mouth to ask what he meant by that, Cam leaned in, got a hand on the side of Matt’s face and held him there while they kissed.

“Okay,” Matt said, when they finally broke apart, his lips buzzing and heartbeat too fast. “That is definitely something we should do again. A lot. I’m really glad your dog isn’t watching us.”

Cam snorted, and fixed Matt with a look. “I never picked you for being that shy,” he said.

“It’s not that,” Matt protested. “It’s just—oh, shut up, whatever, you know what I mean.”

“I guess I do,” Cam said. “So, yeah, we’re doing this?”

“Well if we both want to and everyone thinks we are already anyway,” Matt said, and then added hastily, “that’s a yes, I definitely want to do this, can you please kiss me again so I stop talking before I say something stupid?”

“Uh, yeah, I can do that,” Cam said fast, and instead of just leaning in he shoved at Matt until he was lying down flat on the couch, looking up at Cam as he crawled on top of him and kissed him again in earnest, hands wandering.

“Oh,” Matt said against Cam’s mouth a few minutes later, when Cam had just gotten both of their pants unbuttoned, was in the process of sliding his hand into Matt’s briefs. He was just as relentless when it came to getting laid as he was on the ice, which was both exactly what Matt should have expected and a desperately pleasant surprise. It was exactly what Matt wanted--and exactly the worst time to get struck by a fit of helpless laughter.

Cam stopped moving, braced himself on his other hand and looked down at Matt, eyebrow raised questioningly. “What?”

“Nothing, I just—” Cam dragged his fingertips down and along the length of Matt’s dick, and Matt abruptly lost interest in making jokes or laughing or doing anything but arching up into Cam’s hands. Fuck, he’d always known Cam had great hands, he just hadn’t known how good they were.

“What?” Cam repeated, and this time he stopped moving entirely. 

Matt wasn’t going to call that bluff.

“I guess we’re, um, not wearing white at the wedding, then,” he said quickly, and Cam snorted, appreciating the joke, but then he leaned in again to kiss Matt, and they both got too distracted to dwell on that for any longer.

They didn’t make it far enough to get to Cam’s bedroom, in the end, and so Matt was uncomfortably aware of how much bits of him were sticking to the couch, or to Cam, or both, and not terribly inclined to do anything to fix the situation by the time that they picked up the conversation again. 

Cam lifted his head from where he’d been nuzzling at Matt’s neck and doing his best to leave him a completely unhideable hickey to catch Matt’s eyes and say, quite seriously, “And we’re not letting Boone or Joey give a best man’s speech, ever. Or let Dubi write one for them.”

Matt laughed helplessly and yanked Cam closer again to kiss him hard before he agreed.


End file.
